Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy Read online

  "I supposed it was possible, but it seemed unlikely. The kind of love represented on the card was a kind of perfect love, the combination of a duality to create a beautiful harmony. In some ways, it seemed to me that Ted had abused Michaela. I didn't see how a perfect love could come from a union like that.

  "I was also confused by the appearance of the Devil and of the Hanged Man. Where these cards meant for me? Where they meant for Michaela? Or where they meant for someone else? Someone who hadn't come into the picture yet?"

  Agnes turned to me, away from the cards. She grasped my hands. "I think they were meant for you," she said.

  "Me?" I said.

  "I think the Lovers card refers to you and Jason. That this whole situation was to culminate in the two of you. You and Jason have been entwined since before your conception, in ways that I don't think either of us understands. The seeds were planted here, when Michaela began to express her dissatisfaction with Ted. And the Devil card, that has special significance to you, doesn't it?"

  The Satanists. "Yes," I said.

  "Study this layout. Remember these cards," said Agnes. "I show them to you to guide you. To help you make your choices. If the cards are correct, the fate of the world is at stake here. The world will be changing." She smiled at me again. "But more on that later."

  The scene changed. Ted and Michaela were standing in the room now. They were holding hands. Agnes placed a wreath of flowers on Michaela's head. Her voice-over continued. "I only knew that I had a role to perform in a greater scheme, and that I must do it. I didn't bless the union of Ted and Michaela, however, but I blessed the child they would conceive. I believed that the cards had told me that he or she would bring about some kind of phenomenal change in the world. I believed that it was important that I bless the child with the power and grace of the goddesses."

  Agnes gave Michaela and Ted each a goblet, and they drank. She sang to them in another language. The three all kneeled, their hands raised to the ceiling.

  And then the vision swirled again. When it stopped moving, I was back in the Roman Forum, holding hands with Agnes. It was still dark outside. I shook myself. That had been kind of strange. "So you blessed Jason," I said. "You imbued him with power?"

  Agnes laughed, and it sounded like wind chimes. "I can't imbue power," she said. "Power comes from within. Power comes from the goddesses. Power comes from the earth. I don't control these things."

  I sighed. This had all been very, very interesting, but we really weren't any better off than we had been. "Jason and I can do things," I said. "We don't know why. We don't know how."

  "And you wanted me to tell you," said Agnes.

  "I hoped . . ."

  Agnes stood up. She helped me to my feet. She gestured at the Forum. "This was once the hub of the civilized world," she said. "Once, this place and the people here controlled everything."

  I looked around. Sure, I knew this. This was a majestic place, full of the echoes of ancient power. But I didn't understand exactly why that was important.

  "How did they do it?" she asked me.

  "Well, they went and killed a bunch of people," I said. "They took them over and then they taxed the heck out of them."

  Another laugh from Agnes. "Certainly," she said. "But how did they become the most powerful? How did they create a society that was so advanced? Democracy. Aqueducts. Religious tolerance. How did all of this come to the Romans?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I guess they just thought of that stuff."

  "It was their time," said Agnes. "They had an explosion of knowledge and power and creativity. There have been other such times in the world. It hasn't always been the Romans, but there have been other times. And then it was no longer their time. Things began to fall apart."

  I gave her a sharp look. "You read Yeats?"

  "Hmm?" she looked confused.

  "Nothing."

  "Changes happened. Have you ever heard of the crisis of the Roman empire?"

  "No," I said.

  "It was a period of time," she said. "In the third century, when the empire nearly collapsed. But right around the end of it, something happened. The planet Pluto entered Capricorn."

  "I thought Pluto wasn't a planet anymore," I said.

  "For astrological purposes," she said, "it is a very important entity. Very powerful. Pluto symbolizes the hidden undercurrents within us and society. It represents what is hidden coming to the surface. When it enters Capricorn, the sign of hard work and goal-oriented views, it means that things can get done. For that period of time, when Pluto was in Capricorn, the Empire was able to hold off the darkness, to keep things from falling apart. It took another hundred years afterwards for the Empire to really break apart."

  This was interesting. I guessed. "Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

  "Pluto has been in Capricorn during some interesting historical periods," she said. "It may have been there when King Arthur was fighting off the Saxons." God. King Arthur again. "We can't be sure when King Arthur lived, but the dates seem to line up. It was in Capricorn when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of his church. It was in Capricorn when the American Revolution happened." She looked at me. "And Pluto entered Capricorn last November."

  "Really?" I said.

  "It is a sign," she said. "We are on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius. Things are changing. And I'm sure you've thought about the fact that 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar are only three years away. This is a time of great change and a time of great power. You and Jason are part of it. The Tarot reading showed that to me. Your influence will be felt. It will happen. You may not know how. But you are part of something very big."

  I took a second to let all of that sink in. People had been telling me all about destiny and fate for the past year. People had been telling Jason and me that we had important roles to play. This woman was saying the same thing. But somehow it was different. Maybe it was just because it wasn't primarily concerned with either of us exactly. It was about bigger things, things that were happening in the world. It was about everything, on a global level. But still, it was the same song and dance. The world was destined to change. Jason and I were supposed to be part of it.

  "Do you think this change that's going to happen in the world is a New World Order?" I asked. "Is it a global government?"

  "I don't know what it's going to be," said Agnes. "No one knows. No one understands the future."

  "But you're saying that you do. You're saying that these signs predict what will happen." This was the problem. I didn't want to be a plaything of fate and destiny. I'd promised myself over and over that I'd make my own destiny. I didn't want to be forced into doing anything. "You're saying that Jason and I don't have a choice."

  "Choices are all we have," said Agnes.

  "That doesn't make sense," I said. "If the future is all set like that, if I have a destiny, then I don't have a choice."

  Agnes laughed. "This isn't Oedipus Rex, darling. That isn't the way destiny works. Listen, all that anyone can ever predict, by looking at the stars, or by reading cards, or by searching ancient prophecies, is that you and Jason will be forced into situations over and over again where you will have a massive influence on the fate of important things. But it will be up to you to decide what to do in those situations. You've made decisions before. You'll make them again."

  I blinked. "You mean there can be destiny and free will at the same time?"

  "I mean that there are influences beyond ourselves that we can't control," said Agnes. "That will always be, no matter what you believe. What you can control, Azazel, is the way you react to those influences."

  I bit my lip. Okay, I guess that made sense. So the way Jason and I had been reacting thus far was to run away. To try to protect ourselves. And I'd been worried that the things people had told me about our being evil were coming true. I thought of the Tarot card spread that Agnes had showed me. It was a factor at play. Our violence. "You don't think that we're evil,
then?" I said. "Or destructive? Or violent?"

  "Why do you ask me that?"

  "Because there were visions," I said. "There were visions that Jason was going to kill tons and tons of people. And that he was going to eat me alive. And then some people said that Jason would have been fine, but that I was his dark force. That I was the destructive half, and that I would drive him to become evil. And then Jason is always hitting people and shooting people, and I've been shooting people too. And sometimes it seems like all there is between us is blood and terror and running and hate and fear."

  "The Devil card," said Agnes. "It's an influence."

  "That's all. Just an influence?"

  "There is no way to know what will happen in the future," said Agnes. "Earlier this week, I did a reading that indicated you and Jason would come to see me. This morning, I did a reading again, and it became clear that you two would not be coming."

  "So you came to me."

  "Best as I could," said Agnes. "There is something deeply powerful within you. And within Jason as well. I've never felt anything like it. You speak of visions, Azazel. You have had visions, too, though."

  "Me? No, I haven't."

  "Your dreams."

  "They're just nightmares," I said.

  "They are not 'just' anything. They are the way that I can communicate with you. Truthfully, perhaps, you brought me to you more than I came to you. You must trust yourself. Jason has been trained to act without thinking. You examine things. You worry over things. But until you come to believe that you can make the right decisions and that you will do the right thing, you will never be truly able to wield your power. Jason needs your concern for balance. But you also need his daring resolve. You must act. You must not doubt."

  The sounds of birds chirping carried through the forum. I could see that the sky was starting to lighten.

  "You must go back," said Agnes. "It is late."

  I wanted Agnes to walk with me back to the monastery, but she said she had to go in an opposite direction, so I made my way through the silent streets alone, trying to think about what she had said. None of it made much sense to me. She said that I had to be confident to wield my power. She said that I did have choices, but that I was also bound to a destiny. Overall, she'd said absolutely nothing definite. It was much different from the way the Sons behaved or from the way the Satanists had behaved. They were certain. They were sure of themselves.

  Maybe that was it. She'd said I needed to be confident in myself. Trust myself. But hadn't my parents been certain that Jason was evil? And hadn't that exact certainty caused them to do absolutely horrible things? Weren't the Sons sure that Jason was really the Rising Sun? Hadn't Edgar Weem been certain that he should do what he'd done to bring Jason into the world? I didn't know if I wanted to be certain. I was afraid that if I was certain, I would excuse all kinds of atrocities that I committed in the name of that certainty.

  Of course, it wasn't as if I hadn't already committed atrocities. I flashed again on Lilith's demolished, bloody face. I felt sick.

  When I got back to the monastery, I slid in bed with Jason, who didn't wake up. I closed my eyes and was asleep almost immediately.

  I awoke to the sound of gunshots.

  Chapter Twelve

  September 5, 1990

  Arabella Hoyt has opened my eyes. In the time we spent with her, I have realized that I have been completely wrong about everything I thought about Ted. He has used me. He destroyed me. And the thing that may be growing inside me is not a force of good. It is a force of pure evil. I have been deceived. I must do what I can to end this horridness.

  Jason sat up straight in bed. "Did you hear that?"

  I was up too. It was midmorning. The sun was up. Streams of light came in through the narrow windows, drawing bright rectangles on the floor.

  Jason was on his feet, shrugging into a shirt and checking to make sure his gun was loaded. I followed suit. I wished my hair was longer. I would have liked to pull it back into a ponytail. Instead, I just shoved it behind my ears. Our guns drawn, we crept to our door. Jason kept me behind him as he opened the door. The hallway outside our room was silent. We listened again.

  "I heard shooting," Jason said to me.

  "So did I," I said, peering around him.

  We listened. There wasn't any noise now, but it wasn't dead silent. We could hear the sounds of the streets coming from behind us. Cars beeping. People chattering in Italian as they passed by. But within the monastery, we heard nothing. Jason pulled the door shut.

  "What do we do?" I asked.

  "Maybe nothing's wrong," said Jason. "Maybe it was a firework or a car backfiring or something."

  "Maybe," I said.

  Another gunshot. A scream.

  "No," I said. "That was a gun."

  "Yeah," said Jason. He took a deep breath. "Okay, then. Say goodbye to your clothes."

  I glared at him. "Are we going to try to go out the front door?"

  "Don't see why not," he said.

  I grabbed a bag and shoved some clothes and one of the laptops into it. "Let's just try to take some stuff with us, okay?"

  "Whatever," said Jason. "Let's go."

  He opened the door again and we eased out of the room. Our backs against the wall (well, my stuffed-full bag against the wall, anyway), we crept down the hall, holding our guns. We didn't see anyone.

  Our room was relatively close to the entrance. We only had to go down one hall, make a left, and then we'd be right at the door. We moved quickly but cautiously, glancing around for danger. At the end of the hallway, Jason stopped me. He peered around, gun out.

  We heard another gunshot, much closer now.

  Jason snapped back around the corner. "The Sons," he reported.

  "You can see them?" I asked.

  "They're at the entrance," he said. "They shot a bunch of monks."

  "Oh my God," I breathed. "I thought we were safe here. I thought this whole city was sanctuary."

  "They attacked us in a church before," said Jason. "I don't think sanctuary much matters where we're concerned."

  "How many?" I asked.

  "I don't know," said Jason. "But a lot. Maybe twenty. And who knows if they don't have reinforcements waiting somewhere."

  "Should we kiss and try to drive them crazy?" I asked, trying to make a joke.

  Jason grabbed me by the neck and kissed me fiercely. "No," he said, pulling back. "I think we should look for a back door."

  He grabbed my hand, and we fled back down the hall. It had been a while since Jason and I had lived in this monastery. Still, we knew our way around pretty well. I didn't remember there being a back door, though. "What back door are you talking about?" I asked Jason.

  He shot a look over his shoulder as we ran. "The kitchen," he said. "There's a door in the kitchen."

  "Well, we're going the wrong way!" I said.

  Jason yanked me to the right, hard, and we emerged in the cloister. The cloister was a covered walkway that surrounded a square courtyard. I pointed across the courtyard to the other side of the monastery. "The kitchen is over there," I said.

  "Yeah," said Jason. "We're going across the courtyard." And he pulled me along with him.

  More gunshots echoed from inside the monastery. Jason and I scurried across the courtyard and back inside the monastery. We emerged in a small hallway. The door to the kitchen was right in front of us. We could hear the sound of screams from the main entrance. Jason threw the door open, and we rushed inside.

  We were greeted by the sight of several ex-members of the Council cowering in front of the sink. At the sight of us, they immediately bowed their heads. Geez. They were in fear for their lives, and they were still doing the bowing thing?

  Jason pulled me forward. "Ignore them," he said. We headed for the door.

  "Don't!" said one of the ex-Council members.

  "They've sealed off all the exits," said another.

  Jason stopped short as we saw that there was body in front
of our exit. Immediately, he pulled me away from it. We clattered into the stove. He addressed the ex-Council members. "They're outside the door?" he asked.

  They nodded. "Briggs tried to get out. They shot him."

  "This is sanctuary," said Jason. "What is Hoyt thinking?"